This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation (52) Nourishing the Mind

Good day, everyone. Greetings. We've come together to do this meditation. The obvious thing is that the act of coming down to meditate, sitting down here to be here, to meditate together, is an action. Meditation itself is a kind of action. In traditional Buddhist language, it's kamma (karma)^[1], which literally means action.

Many people associate meditation with being rather than doing. But the movement to let go, to allow oneself to be, is also an action. It's something we're doing: we let go so we can be.

The Buddha tended to define or describe people by what they do, not by how they are in the sense of how they were born. Especially in ancient India, being born into a particular caste was not interesting for the Buddha. What mattered was how people acted and behaved. Did they behave ethically or not?

This is all leading up to the idea that in meditation, sometimes people focus a lot on their experience. Maybe they're not having a good experience, so they try to have a better experience, or let go of something that seems not good, to fix it. Or they try to do something that creates a great experience. They measure themselves by how they are. Another approach is to let be, in a certain sense, how you are, and focus a little bit more on what you do, the actions.

In meditation, there are two actions related to concentration that are important. There's the action of beginning again: when the mind wanders off, we place it back—in this case, on the breathing—and we connect again with the breathing. The second action is hanging in there with the breath. Once we've landed on the breathing, we continue on the breathing. That's a little bit of an action to do so.

Some people don't engage that way. They are able to connect to the breathing, but they quickly wander off again because there isn't that second action: "Okay, now stay there, linger there, hang out there. Get to know it better. Feel and explore the breathing. Really stay present." So that's one whole thing.

But the other thing—and what I want to stress today—is that the orientation around action is to do it in a way that's nourishing. To do it in a way that's enjoyable, that's wholesome, that nourishes us and has a good influence on us. So it's not just the action to do something quickly and get it done with, but to do it with an action that has a nice influence, so it's nourishing and wholesome for our system.

The ideal way is this: when the mind wanders off in thought, the way we come back from that—where we recognize it, come back, and reconnect to the breathing—is an action. We try to do it in a way that's wholesome, nourishing, and pleasant, that has a good influence on us. We wouldn't jerk the mind back. We wouldn't attack the breath or bear down. We wouldn't be ambitious with greed for some kind of meditation state. We're not expecting or demanding something. It's almost like a Tai Chi movement, where the movement itself is satisfying and meaningful. We come back, and we just enjoy the coming back, because it's nourishing and wholesome. We come back with care and with love.

Then there is the second action of sustaining the attention over time, hanging in there. Not bearing down, not keeping the mind in check, not reining the mind in with all these forceful things. How can we stay in a nourishing, supportive, wholesome, and caring way? This art and exploration of how to make the mental actions we do in meditation nourishing, satisfying, enjoyable, and gladdening for us is part of the practice.

Learning, exploring, and thinking about this as we meditate helps us not be so goal-oriented with the action. Rather, like a beautiful Tai Chi, Qigong, or dance practice, just doing the movement is satisfying and meaningful. That's the important thing, not where it gets us.

So the movement of landing and staying on the breath, the movement of sustaining it—that's what supports a nourishing samadhi^[2], a nourishing concentration.

Assume your meditation posture and prepare yourself for the meditation a bit. Consider how you can be here in a wholesome way. How you can be here so that you enter into the activity of meditation with a sense of beauty, nourishment, or wholesomeness. Not in a hurry, not resisting anything, not expecting or demanding that your meditation should be a certain way.

Begin right away to see if you can land on your breathing. Connect to your breathing in a nourishing, nice, and wholesome way. The very way in which you take in the breathing and are aware of it can have some spaciousness, care, love, and tenderness. It's a way of being as you would be with a good friend you care for, or the way you attend to your garden when you're in love with your garden.

In this caring, nourishing way, take a slow, gentle, deep breath. Allow yourself to take in and feel the goodness of a deeper breath, and the goodness of allowing that to happen. Then relax as you exhale. Relax your whole body. Let your breathing return to normal.

Can you adjust your state of mind and your heart just a little bit, if that's all that's possible? So you have a nice, good, wholesome attitude. As if you're getting ready to do mental Tai Chi, mental gardening, or mental caring for something that you love. Perhaps by relaxing the thinking mind, softening the energy of thinking, and relaxing the muscles that are connected to thinking—the pressure and the tension—to just be here.

Then, gently and calmly connect to the beginning of the in-breath. Receive the beginning of the in-breath, and then sustain the attention for however short or long the in-breath is, so you're there with the full in-breath with sustained attention. Connect with the beginning of the out-breath, and then sustain the whole out-breath.

These two movements of connecting, receiving the beginning of each in-breath and out-breath, and then sustaining the attention on the full out-breath and the full in-breath—can you do that in a wholesome, nourishing way? It is an action. Can you make it an action which is free of greed, hatred, or delusion and confusion? Free of wanting it to be different, free of pushing something away in aversion. It is the simplicity of generosity, love, care, and attention to the breathing.

To support the sustained attention, especially through the exhale, you might count the exhales. A gentle, careful count of 'one' that maybe gets stretched out the whole length of the exhale: "One..." And then the next exhale: "Two..." If you lose count, start over again, and count up to ten, up to three, or even just up to one. Explore the wholesomeness and nourishment of attending to the breathing.

Reflections

As we come to the end of this sitting, what do you know about having your mind be wholesome and nourishing? A mind which feels satisfied. If the mind is not that way, can you remember that the mind is a collection of mental activities? It's not a thing. What can you adjust mentally? The way you think, what you think, what you're oriented towards, what you're expecting or hoping for, so that how you are mentally or heartfully feels as if it has a good influence on you.

Maybe if things are hard, what has a good influence is to be forgiving. Or to be friendly, or to be generous towards yourself. To have compassion for the challenges. To appreciate whatever wholesomeness or nourishment is here, and let that be a reference point. Stay close to that, either feeling it or imagining it.

Imagine that you're with someone who is challenging for you, but you don't have to speak or do anything. You're just sitting in the same room together, staying close to your nourishing mind, your wholesome mind and heart. Without having to do or say anything, what happens if you take in the other person, the challenging person? If you think about them, is there some way that there's a chance for your care, friendliness, and tenderness to be touched by that other person, while you stay close to that place where you feel wholesome—a way of being that feels satisfying for you?

So, not getting caught up in "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts," "he said, she said," resentments, or fears. Just staying close to what's wholesome for you, what has a good influence on you.

Then, imagine that you do so for the whole world. That you include the whole world in your wholesome heart, your wholesome mind, and your wholesome awareness. That wholesomeness is the reference point for how to think and feel about other people.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.